


smoke and mirrors

by naga-ame (rokutouxei)



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, reunion au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:51:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4615485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokutouxei/pseuds/naga-ame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in chronological order, it’s spark turning to smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	smoke and mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> [[this is on tumblr](http://rokutouxei.tumblr.com/post/112274786007/smoke-and-mirrors)]

_my love for you is no illusion_

* * *

 

 

i.

Shion is twelve when he first realizes that storms look better reflected on the somber eyes of a little girl-boy who comes knocking. Cherry cakes and hot chocolates have never been sweeter. Not even the torrential downpour of rain could douse the spark that the light in Nezumi’s eyes had started in his stomach and the butterfly fluttering in Shion’s heart, long after he’d left.

 

 

 

 

ii.

Shion doesn’t see Nezumi until four years later, sixteen, taller, older, seen more of the real world as ever. There’s a blade in his tongue now, sharper than twelve-year-olds’ forks. Shion's breath gets caught in his throat like he's being held in a chokehold but there's only the glimmer of a memory of a storm. But the light is still there, like lightning, flashing, and Shion falls in love all over again when the spark remembers how to glow even brighter. The light crosses the hazy silver glimmer like the steel of a sword in a fire, sharpened and readied to burn. He would be willing to mold under a swordsmith.

 

 

 

 

iii.

The fire shows him how easy it is to send something aflame, like the Correctional Facility collapsing over on its own into a million pieces, like the one person he had wanted to safe disappearing right under his nose, like Nezumi’s mouth against his and  _saikai wo kanarazu_  throbbing like lava in the inside of his mind. 

 

 

 

 

iv.

Burn marks. When it hits his skin, the pain is dull, so unsharp it is almost eerie, but the mark is there, with its sting coming every time he remembers the boy—now man, perhaps—behind it, and how long he has been waiting.

 

 

 

 

v.

Shion sits on his desk at the Reconstruction Committee. Every day he glances at his window, mind wandering its lazy glaze, almost silver but not quite the shade he wants, he loves; twenty now and still waiting. (What do 16-year-olds know about promises, anyway?) He wonders if he will wait until they’re nothing, just cinders. But the window stays open but the wind refuses to blow out the flame, only keeping the fire raging and raging.

 

 

 

 

vi.

Nezumi comes back, dripping wet from the pouring storm and Shion remembers twelve years ago was just like this. But Nezumi enters as a guest now, through the door, the hurricane in his face but the clear sky, moon and the stars in his eyes and he shivers as Shion touches him— _Okaeri, Tadaima_ —and leads him to his room where they warm themselves up with the fire in the heart(h).

 

 

 

 

vii.

Nezumi and Shion cling to each other like molted wax. They slip and slide and glide across each other, warm and flushed skins, and Shion hears, feels, touches, sees, smells more than he could remember his entire life, and he’d missed this beatnik fool for a too long time.

 

 

 

 

viii.

It is the dead of midnight and Shion blows away the aroma candle burning on top of the cabinet, watching its silvery thread snake up to the ceiling where it disappears (eventually dissipates) into the room and he casts soft eyes on Nezumi, watching what is left of the candle and moon which now peers in between the storm clouds it has parted to fill in the curves of skin, filling them with light.

 

 

 

 

ix.

Nezumi never promises to stay but he never promises to leave, either, so while he has him Shion is content with waking in the morning and looking over two cups of coffee from the table and this man that had turned his entire world upside down, like holding on to embers in a dying flame, but Shion is vigilant and breathes it in.

 

 

 

 

x.

And Shion (loves seeing the smoke color in Nezumi’s eyes, and how he) loves loves loves setting Nezumi on fire.


End file.
